


Squeaky Clean

by paytontanner



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: I am unhappily tagging this next one, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Teenage Rebellion, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, but he wants to be a rebel, you will all feel bad when Tony sacrifices himself in Avengers 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 21:57:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15180233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paytontanner/pseuds/paytontanner
Summary: Peter has a comprehensive list of things he has unsuccessfully snuck up on in the past.1. Mr. Stark eating a sandwich in the kitchen.2. Mr. Stark listening to ACDC fixing a solar converter in the lab.3. Mr. Stark sleeping in a chair after celebrating heavily with the team.This fact weighs heavily on Peter’s mind as he scales the side of the looming building that is Stark Towers. As quiet, stealthy, and superhero-y as Peter is, the pit in the bottom of his stomach keeps telling him he’ll never make it. He’s climbed into criminal’s bedrooms at night to pluck tech right out of their hands, crept up behind a perp staging a stick-up to snag a gun from their trigger-happy fingers, and even tiptoed past Aunt May’s dozed out figure on the couch after a missed curfew, but this, this is different.This is Peter, sneaking in past curfew, into an Avenger team-filled tower, with the ever-awake, always alert Tony Stark in his midst. And Peter, well, Peter is drunk.





	Squeaky Clean

* * *

 

Peter has an ascending list of the most difficult things he has snuck up on in the past.

  1. That criminal on Norwood who stole from the nice fruit lady, Mrs. Biagini.
  2. Ned
  3. Mr. Delmar’s cat
  4. Aunt May
  5. Doctor Octopus



Likewise, Peter has a comprehensive list of things he has unsuccessfully snuck up on in the past.

  1. Mr. Stark eating a sandwich in the kitchen.
  2. Mr. Stark listening to ACDC fixing a solar converter in the lab.
  3. Mr. Stark sleeping in a chair after celebrating heavily with the team.



The latter fact weighs heavily on Peter’s mind as he scales the side of the looming building that is Stark Towers. As quiet, stealthy, and superhero-y as Peter is, the pit in the bottom of his stomach keeps telling him he’ll never make it. He’s climbed into criminal’s bedrooms at night to pluck tech right out of their hands, crept up behind a perp staging a stick-up to snag a gun from their trigger-happy fingers, and even tiptoed past Aunt May’s dozed out figure on the couch after a missed curfew, but this, this is different.

This is Peter, sneaking in past curfew, into an Avenger team-filled tower, with the ever-awake, always alert Tony Stark in his midst. And Peter, well, Peter is drunk.

* * *

 

It had all started like this.

“So, Spiderkin, how do you get your shits and grins?”

Peter popped his head up from where he was scribbling his answer to question 37C (15.87) on his Maths work and quickly shoved the piece of cheese stringing from the pizza he had just shoved down into his mouth.

“My kicks and - What?”

“For fun, kid,” Hawkeye elaborated. “What do you do for fun?”

Peter was sat with the team, or, at least, some of them. There was Hawkeye and Falcon and Captain America all there, sitting, watching him, waiting for an answer.

Peter cleared his throat.

“Um - Well, I - I’m on the decathlon team at school and -”

“You know I pegged you as a javelin thrower,” Falcon interrupts, flipping the channel on the TV to something sports related. “After what you did in -”

“No, it’s not - um, I’m on the  _academic_  decathlon team,” he clarifies, watching as all three of the men’s faces fall in unison. He quickly continues on, “And also, legos. Me and Ned, he’s my- my best friend, we were just building one last week - the Tardis. Then we, well, Ned actually, he dropped it and, see, it’s over 3,000 pieces. So, we had to - We spent another two hours just reconstructing -”

“Very interesting, son,” Captain America interjects. “Construction is an honorable profession.”

Peter opens his mouth to explain because it’s clear Cap has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about, but Hawkeye speaks up.

“Pete, not that stuff,” he drags a weary hand down his face. “I mean like  _extracurriculars_ ,” he clarifies stressing the last word slowly and with great emphasis.

Peter’s brows furrow together, “Well, um, like I said, I’m on the academic decathlon-”

Suddenly, Falcon leans back in his chair, throwing his head back and miming the act of drinking something behind Cap’s head. Peter’s still not sure, his face twisting in confusion. Then, Falcon lifts both hands above his shoulders and raises the roof.

“Oh,” Peter says, “Ohhh. No, no, no - I don’t,” he can feel his ears go red as he adamantly denies the suggestion. “Aunt May would kill me. I wouldn’t - couldn’t -”

Hawkeye barks out in laughter, standing up and clapping Peter on the shoulder as he moves to the kitchen. “Never, kid?”

Falcon stares at him in disbelief. “Pete, these are your prime years. If you’re not out there causing trouble, then you’re not living.”

Peter just shrugs, tries to insert that one time him, Ned, and MJ snuck into an R rated horror film after curfew, but Hawkeye just waves a dismissive hand his way.

“Peter, you’re killing me, kid. You’ve never snuck out late, or skipped school, or partied until you made yourself sick?”

“Well, I - one time I told May I was sick, but I just wanted to stay home and watch that old  _Karate Kid_  movie.”

Falcon groans, “Kid, you’re worse off than I thought.”

 _So what?_  Peter thinks. Yeah, he’s not exactly rough around the edges. He turns in his homework on time, and makes sure to always take out the trash, and only got that detention one time in 6th grade when he accidentally fell asleep in class after staying up all night reading  _Harry Potter_. So, yeah, sue him - he’s not a rebel, but that doesn’t mean he’s squeaky clean.

I mean, he flies from buildings, and fights bad guys, and trains with deadly assassins like Black Widow and Winter Soldier. Plus, he sometimes watches YouTube videos in class and once he forgot to write his English paper on symbolism in Romeo and Juliet. He doesn’t need to drink, or party, or sneak out to fulfill some teenage rebellious streak. He is perfectly content being -

“Son, that’s great,” Captain America perks up, nodding to Peter very seriously. “A nice kid like you shouldn’t run around with any hooligans who are up to no good. There’s nothing wrong with just being a nice, polite, respectful young man. You know I wish I would have been more like you when I was a young fellow.”

Peter can hear Falcon and Hawkeye burst into laughter as he drops his head down to the table, completely defeated.

Peter is so squeaky clean that even Captain America envies him. That, Peter groans at the continued laughter assaulting his ears, that has got to change.

* * *

The night had started like this.

Two hours ago MJ got wind that her sister’s boyfriend’s best friend’s cousin was having a party in Woodhaven. So, Peter had neatly parted his hair, put on his favourite red checkered shirt, and brushed his teeth, twice, just to be safe.

The party was fine, it was mostly older kids, and none that MJ, Ned, or Peter actually knew. So, Peter had nicked five bottles of something, shoved them in his book bag, and they quickly ditched the party to escape to the park outside MJ’s apartment to sit on the swings.

“Okayyy,” Peter broached, reaching into his bag, “Should we drink the alcohol?”

MJ, predictably, was uninterested in the whole thing. She had no curiosity for the stuff and didn’t get the fuss the Peter was putting up. She also figured someone needed to be sober enough to get both ‘you fools’ home.

Ned, reluctant at first, but just as determined as Peter, gulped down one beer over the course of the forty-five minutes they spent in the park and was a giggly, bubbly, loud mess. He was swaying from where he sat Indian-style on the grass, and kept saying things like “Legos aren’t just toys, they’re an experience.”

That meant Peter was left to down the remaining four beverages on his own. And, determined, to be a teenage rebel, he downed all of them within the hour because he was unsure how his superhuman body would even react. Could he even get drunk? Didn’t his body just process the alcohol like it did everything else? Faster? More efficiently? With fewer side effects?

“MJ I feel so - feel so funny,” Peter giggled, examining his hands closely in front of his face. “I think - This must be drunk. I’m drunk. Nice to meet you drunk, I’m Dad.”

It was at that point that MJ had promptly shoved Peter head first into an Uber.

* * *

The night had ended like this.

Peter had stumbled out of his Uber, wolfing down the two sandwiches MJ had made for him in preparation for the night, walked the perimeter of the building, and grabbed his spider suit out of his book bag and pulled it on.

“Good Evening, Mr. Parker,” Karen greeted as soon Peter pulled his mask on. “Your heart rate is below average. Should I notify the medical team?”

“No!” Peter yelled in what was meant to be a whisper but echoed loudly in the quiet night air. “No, Karen, I don’t - I’ve not - I’m fine.”

Peter latched onto the wall, quickly climbing several stories before he realised he was climbing horizontally enough that he had completely lost sight of his bedroom window. “Shit,” he grumbled, “Karen! Karen! Karen -”

“Yes, Mr. Parker?”

“Karen, I’m lost,” Peter redirected himself and begin climbing again.

“You’re slurring your speech, Mr. Parker. I will contact Mr. Stark and -”

“What? No! Karen, no,” Peter ordered firmly, doing his best to keep his voice sounding normal. “Do not bother Mr. Stark. You’ve got to stop doing that everytime - everytime -”

Peter let out a small yell as his foot slipped, leaving him dangly by the grip of his hands. He readjusted himself and carefully scaled the rest of the building, the dangerous task, fresh air, close call, and Karen’s looming threats keeping him sober enough to reach the ledge outside his room.

He carefully opened his bedroom window with a slow, purposeful push and eased himself into the pitch black room until both feet hit the solid and familiar wood of his bedroom floor.  Quietly closing the window behind him, his heartbeat in his ears, his tongue dry (either from dehydration or nerves), he tiptoed until he could felt his toe stub a little harder than he intended into the frame of his bed.

“Thank god,” Peter muttered, pulling off his mask and tossing it to the floor. “And they said being a teenage rebel is hard.”

It was then that several things happened at once. First, Peter tossed his book bag to its normal resting place, the chair in the corner of his room, and immediately heard the resounding clatter of glass shattering as the bag landed somewhere that was very much  _not_  his chair. Next, the lights flipped on in the room revealing that this was, in fact, not his bedroom that he had slipped into, but Mr. Stark’s, and, said man, was propped up in bed with a glare in his eyes that Peter had never witnessed before. Last, the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck and arms flipped up as his spidey senses tingled. He irritatedly thought they were too late, he had already run into the six-foot danger that had just awoken, but then Peter said, “Oh, shit,” keeled over, and emptied half a pizza, four beers, and two peanut butter sandwiches onto the floor.

* * *

This morning went like this.

Peter had woken up, tired, hungover, and completely unaware of what had happened last night.

Then Tony Stark had burst into his room only a minute after deafening, ear-shattering rock music had startled him awake.

“Oh. Hey, Mr. Stark. I don’t feel - so,” Peter fell back onto the bed, throwing his hand across his head and burying his eyes into the crook of his elbow. “Think I’m sick, Mr. Stark.”

“Sick!” Tony scoffed, opening the blinds and flooding the room with light. “Like hell! You know what sick is? Sick is going to bed early for once in my life and being woken up by a scrawny, lightweight, spider kid breaking into my room and throwing up on my floor,” he punctuates the last five words with a slower, more angry emphasis.

Peter swallows thickly, forcing himself to sit up so he can better gauge just how much trouble he’s in.

“Mr. Stark are you -”

“Peter,” Captain America steps through the door, a stern and stoic look tightening his features. “We are very disappointed in your choices, son.”

“No,” Tony disagrees automatically, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, “ _We_  are  _not_  disappointed.  _I_  am fucking pissed because  _you_ , spiderman,  _barfed_  all over  _my_  floor.”

“Now, Tony, I think you’re just feeling let down-”

“Absolutely pissed-”

“Upset -”

“I’m fucking furious -”

“Look, Mr. Stark, I was aiming for my window -”

“Well, you missed, Parker. You know what you didn’t miss? My carpet that is stained with your vomit.”

Peter just groans, knows it’s not a fight that he can win, he pulls himself up out of bed, realises he’s still wearing his spider suit and begins to peel it off and pull on normal clothes.

“Mr. Stark, everyone does it. I was just - I’m a teenager. It’s what -what we do,” Peter realises how lame it sounds leaving his lips, he doesn’t even sound confident as he stutters around the last part. Stark opens his mouth, like he’s about to yell, the veins in his neck popping slightly, so Peter raises his hand in a pleading motion. “I know - I know, I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I was - I shouldn’t have…It shouldn’t have happened.”

Cap sits on the edge of Peter’s bed, handing him a Gatorade and nodding for him to drink.

Stark takes a deep breath, slouching into the chair in the corner of his room, and leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

“Peter, do you know how dangerous that was?” he asks, rubbing his hands along the scruff of his jaw. “Climbing the tower? Drunk? Kid, you could’ve - you know better than that!”

Peter flinches at the last part, the only part with any real bite, and he gets why. Last night he didn’t think much of it, now, as he glances out the window to see the New York skyline, he realises just what kind of risk he took.

“What were you thinking, son?”

“It was all…It started yesterday, at lunch. Clint and Sam were laughing at me about being all safe and good and stuff and then - then even you,” he motions toward Cap, “you said you got into trouble and rebelled and stuff when you were young and we all know Mr. Stark- ”

Tony lets out a shout of protest at the insinuation.

“I just don’t want to just be a - a squeaky clean kid.”

Tony sighs, leaning back in his chair and once again pinching his nose bridge tightly.

“Parker?”

‘Yeah?”

“Do you like being on the academic decathlon team?”

“Of course.”

“And you like building Legos? And watching Star Wars? And  _talking_  about building Legos and watching Star Wars?”

“Yeah, Mr. Stark, I do.”

“Then why do you care what everyone else is doing? Kid, you like the things you like. Don’t fight it.”

Parker nods his head, wishing his head would stop thumping, and the lights weren’t so bright, and he didn’t feel like the room was spinning every time he closed his eyes. Also, he wishes he would have had this conversation last night, before he ever got the idea in his head that this was something that  _needed_  to be done.

“I’m sorry Cap, Mr. Stark, I don’t know - I’m sorry, really, really sorry.”

Cap ruffles his hair, tells him he’s glad he’s learned his lesson and leaves the room with the promise to cook him some food after he gets some more sleep.

Tony, on the other hand, stands up with a groan about his carpet, tells him his room smells like armpit, and swipes his spider suit off the floor.

“Kid, we all make mistakes,” Tony looks down at the younger man, waiting for Peter to lay back down and then pulling up the comforter until it’s tucked under his chin, “we just need to make sure we learn from them.”

“I really don’t know what I was thinking, Mr. Stark.”

“Me either kid,”Tony sighs heavily, runs his hands through Peter’s hair roughly, and turns to leave, “but I know what you’ll be thinking later when you’re scrubbing day old vomit out of my carpet- I’m an absolute moron.”

“But, Mr. Stark, I -”

“Play some Swedish Death metal, Jarvis,” Tony pulls Peter’s bedroom door shut behind him, but not before saying, “Full volume, please.”


End file.
